So I am wondering what the Church teaches about the use of divining rods and dowsing not for monetary gain but for finding water. Any thoughts or real church teaching on this would be appreciated. My immediate thoughts about this is that it is a big NO NO.

So I am wondering what the Church teaches about the use of divining rods and dowsing not for monetary gain but for finding water. Any thoughts or real church teaching on this would be appreciated. My immediate thoughts about this is that it is a big NO NO.

So I am wondering what the Church teaches about the use of divining rods and dowsing not for monetary gain but for finding water. Any thoughts or real church teaching on this would be appreciated. My immediate thoughts about this is that it is a big NO NO.

Converted Viking

Does the Church have a specific teaching on every specific practice man has ever thought of or will think of? Or does the Church give us general doctrinal principles that we have to interpret so we can understand how they apply to a specific scenario?

So I am wondering what the Church teaches about the use of divining rods and dowsing not for monetary gain but for finding water. Any thoughts or real church teaching on this would be appreciated. My immediate thoughts about this is that it is a big NO NO.

Converted Viking

Does the Church have a specific teaching on every specific practice man has ever thought of or will think of? Or does the Church give us general doctrinal principles that we have to interpret so we can understand how they apply to a specific scenario?

This sort of thing was popular among older generations of hill people. Rather than praying to find water, they would often say some type of incantation that would sometimes mention God or Jesus. And although it's called 'water witching', I'm positive it's got nothing to do with Wicca.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

In Greece, as well. People who could do it were considered gifted and (I think) received a blessing before an attempt. In my neck of the woods, the last such were in the time of my grandfather, so I don't know details, but it was not particularly frowned upon (if it was, I'd probably have heard).

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'Evil isn't the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as evil, maybe more so, and it's a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against stupid. That might actually make a difference.'~Harry Dresden

It should be ok imo. It seems like a harmless folk thing/superstition. I always smile when i think how a priest I know and am distantly related to, after seeing his unction and prayers didn't work, took my dad's cousin and her daughter put them in his car and drove them to see an old "wise" woman some 20 km away.

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She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable.

The church has always taught that superstitions and astrology or similar things are not compatible with Faith in God, and Jesus said you could move a mountain with a mustard seed portion of Faith.

So if you do those other things that are not derived from God, you are saying he is less powerful than those things, thus insulting to God.I have looked at horoscopes , but I give credit to God if it helps me, which they never do really. I find myself reading them even though I do not believe them,

So it stands to reason that people were willing to try anything when they needed water.

Nowadays there is ground penetrating radar and other scientific ways of finding water which should negate the need for such silliness.

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The Lord gathers his sheep, I fear I am a goat. Lord have mercy.

"A Christian is someone who follows and worships a perfectly good God who revealed his true face through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.“

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

One little episode in Fr. Seraphim's biography contains such a person locating a spot for them (St. Hermans) to drill their well . . . when the drilling team shows up they had to drill a lot farther than expected.

"Walking unannounced through the monastery gate with two long metal "antennae" sticking out of him, the dowser presented quite a strange spectacle."

"The dowser, Fr. Seraphim recorded, "turned out to be a religious man, who regards his work not as 'witching', but simply as a natural talent given by God, and he said a prayer before beginning work."

Nowadays there is ground penetrating radar and other scientific ways of finding water which should negate the need for such silliness.

Well what if one is out in the sticks without access to the above technology or poor in a third world country?

Viking

To Michael Kalina , The issue is that you can pray to God and have faith that you have received it without a divining. When you start having faith in other sources of power is the issue. The church warns against these things.

I am poor in the richest country

The point is that there are options that were not there back when divining sticks were popular. There are people who will help us get water usually. Also the fact that we can communicate our troubles such as drought , means we we can help others at long distances now.

Also I remember seeing an old western show where the man who was able to divine for water wanted the town to pay him a large sum of money for his service . So the poor pioneers also had the same problems of no water , however they had little possibility for outside help that exists today.

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The Lord gathers his sheep, I fear I am a goat. Lord have mercy.

"A Christian is someone who follows and worships a perfectly good God who revealed his true face through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.“

To Michael Kalina , The issue is that you can pray to God and have faith that you have received it without a divining. When you start having faith in other sources of power is the issue. The church warns against these things.

On what basis do you think people back then believed finding water came from "other sources of power" and not from God?

BTW my euchologion has a prayer before digging a well.

edit:

In a discussion on the very same issue someone wrote Fr. Rose once hired such a man to find water for him.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

When Fr. Ephrem acquired the property for St. Anthony's Monastery in Arizona, there was some question as to where to drill for a water source. Someone brought in an engineering team, which recommended a spot, but Fr. Ephrem said, "No, dig here," and indicated another place. The place the engineers tried was a dry hole; Fr. Ephrem's spot struck a very productive source, which has supplied the monastery ever since.

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The end of the world is as near as the day of your death;watch and pray.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

To Michael Kalina , The issue is that you can pray to God and have faith that you have received it without a divining. When you start having faith in other sources of power is the issue. The church warns against these things.

On what basis do you think people back then believed finding water came from "other sources of power" and not from God?

BTW my euchologion has a prayer before digging a well.

edit:

In a discussion on the very same issue someone wrote Fr. Rose once hired such a man to find water for him.

And what about Ex. 17, 1-6?

Well they would ask a priest to help instead of a person with a stick who traditionally was not professing any help from prayer .

There was no scientific basis for this practice, so it was considered a black art,if not specifically sanctioned or overseen by the church.

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The Lord gathers his sheep, I fear I am a goat. Lord have mercy.

"A Christian is someone who follows and worships a perfectly good God who revealed his true face through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.“

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

I've known a couple dowsers in my short time on earth and both emphatically stated that they viewed their ability to find water as a gift from God and that they were merely "sensitive" to its existence. Both prayed to God "through Jesus,mind you" (both were hardcore Baptists) to "guide their hands, hearts, and minds" in their search.

I have no doubt in my mind that they were not "witches" engaged in "black arts."

They were also more closely following the Way than the vast majority of supposed Orthodox Christians I've ever met.

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"Hearing a nun's confession is like being stoned to death with popcorn." --Abp. Fulton Sheen

I think there is a very modern assumption running under here that there are only two ways of understanding or harnessing the natural world- through the modern natural sciences or through divine gifts, and anything falling outside these two must be witchcraft. Setting aside whether dowsing actually works, it is one of countless traditional "sciences" of the world which wouldn't stand up to modern scientific rigor but which are not necessarily sorcerous or demonic.

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Quote

“A goose to hatch the Crystal Egg after an Eagle had half-hatched it! Aye, aye, to be sure, that’s right,” said the Old Woman of Beare. “And now you must go find out what happened to it. Go now, and when you come back I will give you your name.”

Lots of interesting replies here. Actually the reason I bought this up is that I have used them in the past to find buried sewer lines out to the septic system. The house was built back in the 50s and I had no idea where they might be. All I know is that it worked and I found the line. The whole thing was kind of creepy and gave me the willies.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

I said in my original post that If they are derived from other sources, I did not say they were.

But would you go to a church which was run by these guys who claim to be able to do all sorts of things such as find water with a forked stick, even if they claim to be using the power of God?

The Church was OK with that and used such people.

I go to a Church run by people who claim they can magically change bread into God's Flesh.

Really?

What Faith is this church?

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Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

I've got to say that this topic isn't exactly on a list of important stuff to ponder. It the kind of topic that I remember one usually frenzied parishioner would call my dad (a priest) about on a Saturday night just like clockwork or during Holy Week or Christmas Eve and insist that he needed THE answer right away. Caller ID came too late for my dad....

I said in my original post that If they are derived from other sources, I did not say they were.

But would you go to a church which was run by these guys who claim to be able to do all sorts of things such as find water with a forked stick, even if they claim to be using the power of God?

The Church was OK with that and used such people.

I go to a Church run by people who claim they can magically change bread into God's Flesh.

Really?

What Faith is this church?

Just for the record, I believe that Michal was simply trying to make a point, and certainly not actually inferring that the Eucharist is "magic".

He is, without a doubt, an Orthodox Christian and was simply trying to make a point using sarcasm.

« Last Edit: May 22, 2013, 02:10:24 PM by LizaSymonenko »

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Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

Accordding to some posters here, there are only two methods of understanding world: the one of modern science, and the one of dubious magic. During Liturgy bread changes into the Body of Christ, doesn't it? On the other hand there are no scientific proofs for that. It means it must magic.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

I think that is a false dilemma. Perhaps some people would argue that, but that sounds more of an atheistic position to me than anything else.

Regardless of whether it actually works or it is just bogus, I think whether it is wrong or not depends on what you believe is happening when you do it. If you are using an object (particularly an un-consecrated one) to supernaturally obtain information that only God presumably knows without His direction to do so, I think that is wrong. If you think it is helping you identify low points in the ground that water might run to, that would not be bad (it might not be efficient or correct, but it isn't evil)

I know next to nothing about diving rods....but, the person who is doing the divining....are they saying prayers...asking for divine intersession....?

How do THEY think they are finding the water?

Certainly it's not the tree branch that is finding it alone...

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Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

Accordding to some posters here, there are only two methods of understanding world: the one of modern science, and the one of dubious magic. During Liturgy bread changes into the Body of Christ, doesn't it? On the other hand there are no scientific proofs for that. It means it must magic.

Or am I wrong in understanding that way of reasoning?

I think that you are correct. That is how the "world" sees it.

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I would be happy to agree with you, but then both of us would be wrong.

I know next to nothing about diving rods....but, the person who is doing the divining....are they saying prayers...asking for divine intersession....?

How do THEY think they are finding the water?

Certainly it's not the tree branch that is finding it alone...

Dowsing is a craft spread across various cultures (and religions), so the particulars vary. What remains constant, at least as far as I've been able to find, is the dowsers' belief that their gift comes from Deity (whatever their understanding of it is) and is meant to be put to the service of their community. It is considered particularly bad form to charge for their efforts.

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'Evil isn't the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as evil, maybe more so, and it's a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against stupid. That might actually make a difference.'~Harry Dresden

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

Accordding to some posters here, there are only two methods of understanding world: the one of modern science, and the one of dubious magic. During Liturgy bread changes into the Body of Christ, doesn't it? On the other hand there are no scientific proofs for that. It means it must magic.